For millennia, Balic has maintained complex relations with the giant tribes, frequently using its military to intercept giants raiding Balican farms and estates or trading vessels, but also trading heavily with the tribes (most notably for giant hair, the trade of which Balic monopolizes). Balic has maintained this relationship by playing the two broad types of giants (beasthead and “regular”) against each other; at any given moment, Balic might be trading with the beastheads and warring with the non-beastheads or vice-versa. Making use of the ancient enmity between the two varieties of giant has been very lucrative.

The Balican Giant War began when Balic lost control of the delicate power balance it had been maintaining for thousands of years. Sometime in the early months of the year, the giants unified, and for the first time in memory the war between the beastheads and non-beastheads was over. It was not long before the combined giant tribes began to raid Balican holdings with unprecedented vigor. When the Balican military responded forcefully, the tribes (instead of scattering and fragmenting as usual) mounted robust resistance. A full-scale uprising was now in force, and Balic went into war mode in an effort to quell it.

The uprising lasted for several months. Thousands of inhabitants of the peninsula died and hundreds of farms and settlements were razed as the giants rampaged across the land. The Balican navy took the fight to the giants, invading their island homes and decimating entire tribes. At the war’s height, the fortified town of Altaruk was overrun by giant raiders, who slew hundreds of townspeople (including the town’s governor) and caused substantial property damage.

By the month of Haze, however, the giants had fallen to squabbling again (with substantial covert help from Balican operatives, it is rumored) and the uprising fell apart. The status quo resumed, and by King’s Defiance Balic was trading with them again.